There's an invite-only 'Soho House for nerds' launching soon in NYC

Betaworks Studios, a members-only club for New York's tech community, is opening in downtown Manhattan in the spring.

The club is the offshoot of 10-year-old startup studio Betaworks, and aims to foster connections between entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, and people involved in the tech industry.

A hangout space for New York's tech community is heading to the Meatpacking District, courtesy of startup studio Betaworks. The invite-only club is scheduled to open this spring with the aim of fostering connections between entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, and people involved in the tech industry.

In an interview with Business Insider, Betaworks founder and CEO John Borthwick said that the goal for the club, called Betaworks Studios, is to create a common space where entrepreneurs can interact. "In the startup community, we're seeing an isolation among builders and an inability to connect with one another," said Borthwick. "With Betaworks Studios, we're creating a physical space to open up the best of Betaworks to a larger community."

Borthwick says the space will function similarly to a lobby at a tech conference. "The inspiration is that there's a lot of people who pay high ticket prices to go to a conference to find that what's happening in the lobby is often times the best thing there," Borthwick said.

A rendering of betaworks Studios.
Derris

While there's no official prerequisite to join, prospective members must apply through Betawork's site where they'll be admitted on a select, invitation-only basis. The cost to join Betaworks Studios will be $2,400 a year, which is roughly between the cost of a Soho House membership (~$1,200 a year) and a premium gym membership (~$2,400 a year).

The studio is among an influx of new clubs centered around tech, most of which are based out of Silicon Valley and San Francisco. And while private, invite-only club have faced criticism in recent months for harboring hermetic, homogeneous communities, Borthwick says that Betaworks Studios will be different.

"We're working hard to curate a community that is a diverse mix of people, given their background, gender, age, and race," he said "We're coming up with creative ways of balancing what the community looks like in the actual physical space."